Jason Kuznicki has an excellent post up at Positive Liberty about a contradiction in the military's handling of gay soldiers. On the one hand, they adamantly claim that allowing gays to serve in the military undermines morale and unit cohesion (the same exact arguments they made 60 years ago against allowing blacks to serve in "white" units, incidentally), but on the other hand when wartime comes around they suddenly stop discharging those who admit to being gay. The military has long denied that they have such a double standard, but a 1999 Unit Commander's Handbook has been uncovered that contains explicit instructions that if a unit has received its orders for mobilization, no request for discharge is to be honored. And as Jason notes, other nations, including Britain and Israel, have long allowed gay soldiers to serve without a problem. It's time to end this discrimination. Gay soldiers can serve their country just as bravely as straight ones.
- Log in to post comments
I watched a documentary on Sparta and other Greeks defending themselves against the Persians a few weeks ago. It said that Sparta, a military city-state, encouraged gay relationships within its ranks. Why? If you're involved in a relationship with the guy next to you in the phalanx, you're more likely to defend him. So this increased the togetherness and strengthened the bonds of the warriors. As far as I know, the Spartans were some of the greatest warriors to exist, why wouldn't the American military want to encourage the same?
A couple of points
One, this "double standard" has been well known since the Vietnam War, if not earlier. The FedGov drafted those who claimed to be gay, nonetheless.
Two, this continued through Gulf War I. People who claimed to be gay were called up regardless. Then they were cashiered at the end of the conflict.
Three, Charles Moskos, the sociology prof from UnivChicago who was the actual architect of the "don't ask/don'tell" policy in the early 1990s, a couple of years ago opined that, if the military were to reinstitute a draft, it should also draft openly gay people. No joke. That makes a mockery of his early claim that openly gay people serving in the military would undermine "unit cohesion."
BTW, as far as I can tell, sociology is another one of these fake sciences. I'll leave it at that.
Kele,
I don't know either, why don't you post that question on some military blogs and I'm sure they'll give you some of their opinions.
While sociology might more properly be referred to as a soft science(or better part of the humanities like anthropology) there are some research methodologies that would be useful here. I, for one, would like to know the actual numbers of those released prior to 2003, under the homosexual regulations in the UCMJ. I would appreciate those numbers being disaggregated in such a way as i could see how many: men versus women, non-combat versus combat, service by service, and unit by unit(such as supply, training, readiness, infantry, sub duty, and so forth). I suspect, though with no actual knowledge upon which my suspicion is based, that we would find more gays released than lesbians, more non-combatants, more officer classes, and more from smaller identifiable units. The military will always practice hypocrisy as a useful and necessary strategy to accomplish its mission.
I always thought gay soldiers were even braver. They risk life and limb defending a country that thinks they're not worthy of full human rights, and also risk being beaten up (or friendly fire) by their fellow soldiers.
spyder at September 15, 2005 05:24 PM
I, for one, would like to know the actual numbers of those released prior to 2003, under the homosexual regulations in the UCMJ.
You can get the information regarding discharrges under "don't ask/don't tell" from the Servicemembers Legal Defense Network. It's a PDF file available for download at http://www.sldn.org/binary-data/SLDN_ARTICLES/pdf_file/1449.pdf The discharge statistics are at the end. One interesting thing is that the number of discharges dropped precipitously in 2002 and 2003 (after a record high in 2001) reflecting the military's need for personnel as it was gearing up for war.
BTW, I would consider anthropology more in a "hard science" category. It is an historical science, not unlike evolutionary biology. Sociology is a "soft science," in a similar sense as economics (which I don't consider to be a science at all).
If you have trouble re-constructing the link to the PDF file that I posted above, it is merely a button on the page http://www.sldn.org/templates/press/record.html?section=3&record=1449
Kele, before you post on military blogs about gays in the ranks in ancient Greece, I think you had best do some more research. The attitude roward homosexuality varied by place, time, and social class. I am not sure the documentary gave correct information about Sparta. What you describe sounds a lot more like the Sacred Band in Thebes. The Spartans, while not condemning homosexuality and accepting it to some degree, did not, as I recall, openly endorse it. So to prevent your good point from being trashed because of an error in detail, I suggest you take a closer look. There are a lot of good souces on the topic. If I were not busy supervising a study hall I might even look them up myself.
Indeed, Spartan men were encouraged to marry at a younger age than most other Greeks, to produce more warrior/citizens. Also, there is the absence of homosexual themes in Spartan pottery. While not explicitly frowned upon, homosexuality wasn't as entrenched in Spartan culture as it was in other parts of Greece to my knowledge.